Safety Gone

Any school shooting is a tragedy
but today's at Albemarle High School
in North Carolina is especially
heart-breaking to me; it is my
mother's alma mater, and I have
lots of family in the area. I wonder
how long it will be before Kellie Pickler
is brought up? The country star
hails from there as well.

You should be safe at home.
You should be safe at school.
Between one and the other, awful things
occur and far too often, but at home...
when a child's at home....it should be
better. When a child's at school. There
should be peace, and love, there should
be affirmation, comfort, care, instructing
in the ways wherein the child should go.
Whether in the inner city or in rural
towns across the land, the children
should be safe at home and school.
Children who are angry, though.
because of home or school or both,
are not the safest playmates to be found.
If only we could tell just who they are
before the buttons pushed can't be unpushed,
the shots unfired, the stab wounds taken back.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2014